LN1301 mesh question

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strange
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Joined: 18 Jun 2006
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PostPosted: Fri Oct 25, 2024 0:18    Post subject: Reply with quote
Does the SAE Passphrase need to be set? Some of the things that I read sounded like if it was not set a random value would be generated. Maybe I misunderstood.
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Linksys MX4300 802.11s Secondary 2

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lexridge
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PostPosted: Fri Oct 25, 2024 2:59    Post subject: Reply with quote
strange wrote:
Does the SAE Passphrase need to be set? Some of the things that I read sounded like if it was not set a random value would be generated. Maybe I misunderstood.

I've always had to set it or they would not even connect.

_________________
- Linksys EA8500: I-Gateway, WAP/VAP 5ghz only. Features: WDS-AP, VLANs, Samba, WG, Entware - r59429
- Linksys EA8500: 802.11s Secondary w/VLAN Trunk over 5ghz - r59171
- Linksys MX4300: 802.11s Primary w/VLAN Trunk over 5ghz. 2.4ghz WAP/VAP only - r59171
- Linksys MX4300 (WAP/VAP (7)) Multiple VLANs over single trunk port. Entware/Samba r59451
- Linksys MR7350: WDS Station for extended Ethernet r59451
- Linksys Velop WHW03v1 x2: OpenWRT w/GRETAP tunnel for VLANs on VAPs
- OSes: Fedora 40, 10 RPis (2,3,4,5), 23 ESP8266s: Straight from Amiga to Linux in '95, never having owned a Windows PC.

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strange
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PostPosted: Fri Oct 25, 2024 3:18    Post subject: Reply with quote
I don't have mine set and it works okay. I just don't want to have an open network but I figured if it generated a random key that would be better than one that I generated.
_________________
Linksys MX4300 802.11s Primary
Linksys MX4300 802.11s Secondary 1
Linksys MX4300 802.11s Secondary 2

Netgear XR500 - Retired
R6700 v3 - Retired
lexridge
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Joined: 07 Jun 2006
Posts: 1827
Location: WV, USA

PostPosted: Fri Oct 25, 2024 3:33    Post subject: Reply with quote
strange wrote:
I don't have mine set and it works okay. I just don't want to have an open network but I figured if it generated a random key that would be better than one that I generated.

WPA3 is required for 802.11s because it includes SAE passphrase as part of its standard. Without reading the spec (again), I am not sure how a random auto generated key could match on both ends. But you are connected so who am I to question it. lol

I'd set the same passphrase on each router and see if you notice any difference in performance, if it were me.

_________________
- Linksys EA8500: I-Gateway, WAP/VAP 5ghz only. Features: WDS-AP, VLANs, Samba, WG, Entware - r59429
- Linksys EA8500: 802.11s Secondary w/VLAN Trunk over 5ghz - r59171
- Linksys MX4300: 802.11s Primary w/VLAN Trunk over 5ghz. 2.4ghz WAP/VAP only - r59171
- Linksys MX4300 (WAP/VAP (7)) Multiple VLANs over single trunk port. Entware/Samba r59451
- Linksys MR7350: WDS Station for extended Ethernet r59451
- Linksys Velop WHW03v1 x2: OpenWRT w/GRETAP tunnel for VLANs on VAPs
- OSes: Fedora 40, 10 RPis (2,3,4,5), 23 ESP8266s: Straight from Amiga to Linux in '95, never having owned a Windows PC.

- Forum member #248
strange
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Joined: 18 Jun 2006
Posts: 262

PostPosted: Fri Oct 25, 2024 14:08    Post subject: Reply with quote
Thank you for the response. I'll try it out.
_________________
Linksys MX4300 802.11s Primary
Linksys MX4300 802.11s Secondary 1
Linksys MX4300 802.11s Secondary 2

Netgear XR500 - Retired
R6700 v3 - Retired
ohmic314
DD-WRT Novice


Joined: 09 Dec 2011
Posts: 8

PostPosted: Fri Oct 25, 2024 20:27    Post subject: Reply with quote
kwc wrote:
how did u managed to make 802.11s works with DHCP enabled?

I thought it is a known issue that DHCP won't work with 802.11s? Currently I have to use my old router to act as DHCP server because of this issue


For me it works. I was having trouble with DHCP when STP was enabled. It took so long for DHCP to assign an IP address to anything connected that I thought it was broken. After disabling STP, everything worked perfectly. In other instructions for mesh, they say to turn on STP and that's what took me hours of debugging to figure out why things weren't working.

lexridge wrote:

I can only assume the dhcp is working because this person kept the dhcp server running on each sub-node. This is a known workaround.


For my setup, I only have one DHCP server enabled on the router. All three are LN1301/MX4300. The setup is like this (only the LN1301 to the internet is hardwired, all else is wifi):

Internet --- LN1301 as Router (with DHCP enabled) ~~~ LN1301 as node 1 (DHCP disabled) ~~~ LN1301 as node 2 (DHCP disabled)


strange wrote:

Does the SAE Passphrase need to be set? Some of the things that I read sounded like if it was not set a random value would be generated. Maybe I misunderstood.


I set it because I wanted to ensure that it's passphrase protected. If I left it blank, then I am not sure how it's supposed to know who to allow and not allow on the mesh network. Imagine your neighbor bought the same router and tried to connect, what's preventing him from getting on? Granted, on my phone's wifi scanner, the SSID wasn't showing up, but I'm not sure that another scanner might display the SSID. Performance wise, I didn't notice any slowdown by having a passphrase, but I didn't do any comparison with and without a passphrase.[/quote]
lexridge
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Joined: 07 Jun 2006
Posts: 1827
Location: WV, USA

PostPosted: Fri Oct 25, 2024 21:59    Post subject: Reply with quote
ohmic314 wrote:
I was having trouble with DHCP when STP was enabled. It took so long for DHCP to assign an IP address to anything connected that I thought it was broken. After disabling STP, everything worked perfectly. In other instructions for mesh, they say to turn on STP and that's what took me hours of debugging to figure out why things weren't working.


Well now isn't this very interesting. So by default the wlanN carrying the 802.11s would be on br0 which has STP disabled by default. I assume this is where you originally (per "other instructions") turned it on. Now had you created a new bridge and assigned the wlanN to it, it would have defaulted to STP being on.
ohmic314 wrote:

For my setup, I only have one DHCP server enabled on the router. All three are LN1301/MX4300. The setup is like this (only the LN1301 to the internet is hardwired, all else is wifi):

Internet --- LN1301 as Router (with DHCP enabled) ~~~ LN1301 as node 1 (DHCP disabled) ~~~ LN1301 as node 2 (DHCP disabled)

The way you wrote up your original post I thought you HAD enabled DHCP on all the child nodes. My bad.

Hopefully this has been the issue with DHCP the entire time, but I also find it hard to believe that everyone who tested this and reported DHCP as not working would have turned on the STP on br0 which again, is OFF by default, therefore breaking it.

Thanks for (hopefully) clearing this up.

_________________
- Linksys EA8500: I-Gateway, WAP/VAP 5ghz only. Features: WDS-AP, VLANs, Samba, WG, Entware - r59429
- Linksys EA8500: 802.11s Secondary w/VLAN Trunk over 5ghz - r59171
- Linksys MX4300: 802.11s Primary w/VLAN Trunk over 5ghz. 2.4ghz WAP/VAP only - r59171
- Linksys MX4300 (WAP/VAP (7)) Multiple VLANs over single trunk port. Entware/Samba r59451
- Linksys MR7350: WDS Station for extended Ethernet r59451
- Linksys Velop WHW03v1 x2: OpenWRT w/GRETAP tunnel for VLANs on VAPs
- OSes: Fedora 40, 10 RPis (2,3,4,5), 23 ESP8266s: Straight from Amiga to Linux in '95, never having owned a Windows PC.

- Forum member #248
ohmic314
DD-WRT Novice


Joined: 09 Dec 2011
Posts: 8

PostPosted: Sat Oct 26, 2024 5:35    Post subject: Reply with quote
lexridge wrote:
The way you wrote up your original post I thought you HAD enabled DHCP on all the child nodes. My bad.


I definitely made it confusing by adding those details. I thought to leave out the extra info, but I convinced myself if I spent a bunch of time researching this, that maybe I'll save someone else some time. I'm sorry it ended up being confusing. Hopefully it ends up being useful!
minchinghowrt
DD-WRT Novice


Joined: 17 Sep 2024
Posts: 25

PostPosted: Sun Oct 27, 2024 2:25    Post subject: Reply with quote
lexridge wrote:
ohmic314 wrote:
I was having trouble with DHCP when STP was enabled. It took so long for DHCP to assign an IP address to anything connected that I thought it was broken. After disabling STP, everything worked perfectly. In other instructions for mesh, they say to turn on STP and that's what took me hours of debugging to figure out why things weren't working.


Well now isn't this very interesting. So by default the wlanN carrying the 802.11s would be on br0 which has STP disabled by default. I assume this is where you originally (per "other instructions") turned it on. Now had you created a new bridge and assigned the wlanN to it, it would have defaulted to STP being on.
ohmic314 wrote:

For my setup, I only have one DHCP server enabled on the router. All three are LN1301/MX4300. The setup is like this (only the LN1301 to the internet is hardwired, all else is wifi):

Internet --- LN1301 as Router (with DHCP enabled) ~~~ LN1301 as node 1 (DHCP disabled) ~~~ LN1301 as node 2 (DHCP disabled)

The way you wrote up your original post I thought you HAD enabled DHCP on all the child nodes. My bad.

Hopefully this has been the issue with DHCP the entire time, but I also find it hard to believe that everyone who tested this and reported DHCP as not working would have turned on the STP on br0 which again, is OFF by default, therefore breaking it.

Thanks for (hopefully) clearing this up.



I just tried the 10/15 build today. Still no dice. I'm pretty sure STP is turned off by default. I did notice ohmic314 mentioned LN1301. I assume this should be the same hardware as LN1300, but shipped with different firmware. I also tried different Shortcut Forwarding Engine settings. Nothing really helps.

I hope if screenshot of setting can be provided. I really want to use DD-wrt after I tried OpenWRT. :p
lexridge
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Joined: 07 Jun 2006
Posts: 1827
Location: WV, USA

PostPosted: Sun Oct 27, 2024 4:03    Post subject: Reply with quote
minchinghowrt wrote:
I just tried the 10/15 build today. Still no dice. I'm pretty sure STP is turned off by default. I did notice ohmic314 mentioned LN1301. I assume this should be the same hardware as LN1300, but shipped with different firmware. I also tried different Shortcut Forwarding Engine settings. Nothing really helps.

We can assume since DD-WRT flashed and boots without any errors, you are good with a LN1300, so I doubt that would cause any dhcp issues on its own.

What is of more importance here, is that is still does not work for you, even with STP off. So there must be something else different on @ohmic314 devices. What is it, is the real question?

@ohmic314 Screen shots of the main node and at least one secondary node would be quite helpful. These should include your Basic Setup tab, Wireless/Basic tab and Networking tab.

_________________
- Linksys EA8500: I-Gateway, WAP/VAP 5ghz only. Features: WDS-AP, VLANs, Samba, WG, Entware - r59429
- Linksys EA8500: 802.11s Secondary w/VLAN Trunk over 5ghz - r59171
- Linksys MX4300: 802.11s Primary w/VLAN Trunk over 5ghz. 2.4ghz WAP/VAP only - r59171
- Linksys MX4300 (WAP/VAP (7)) Multiple VLANs over single trunk port. Entware/Samba r59451
- Linksys MR7350: WDS Station for extended Ethernet r59451
- Linksys Velop WHW03v1 x2: OpenWRT w/GRETAP tunnel for VLANs on VAPs
- OSes: Fedora 40, 10 RPis (2,3,4,5), 23 ESP8266s: Straight from Amiga to Linux in '95, never having owned a Windows PC.

- Forum member #248
lexridge
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Joined: 07 Jun 2006
Posts: 1827
Location: WV, USA

PostPosted: Sun Oct 27, 2024 18:53    Post subject: Reply with quote
I had some free time this morning to do some dhcp testing between two mx4300s over 802.11s.

- Primary 802.11s node using wlan2 on channel 100. This is the only active radio.
- Secondary 802.11s node using wlan2 on channel 100. wlan0 and wlan1 are both configured as WAPs.
- STP off by default on both routers (br0).

I did not have any issues getting assigned IP addresses from either WAP, both 2.4ghz and 5ghz.
Then I enabled STP on both routers. Made no difference. Still was able to get dhcp addresses assigned very quickly (less than 2 seconds).

The only difference I can find here perhaps is that I am running an alpha release. So MAYBE the issue was fixed between r58568 and what I am running, r58606M.

Searching through SVN, I did find one small change to Mesh: https://svn.dd-wrt.com/changeset/58582 which appears to turns off ath11k transmit checksumming.

_________________
- Linksys EA8500: I-Gateway, WAP/VAP 5ghz only. Features: WDS-AP, VLANs, Samba, WG, Entware - r59429
- Linksys EA8500: 802.11s Secondary w/VLAN Trunk over 5ghz - r59171
- Linksys MX4300: 802.11s Primary w/VLAN Trunk over 5ghz. 2.4ghz WAP/VAP only - r59171
- Linksys MX4300 (WAP/VAP (7)) Multiple VLANs over single trunk port. Entware/Samba r59451
- Linksys MR7350: WDS Station for extended Ethernet r59451
- Linksys Velop WHW03v1 x2: OpenWRT w/GRETAP tunnel for VLANs on VAPs
- OSes: Fedora 40, 10 RPis (2,3,4,5), 23 ESP8266s: Straight from Amiga to Linux in '95, never having owned a Windows PC.

- Forum member #248
ohmic314
DD-WRT Novice


Joined: 09 Dec 2011
Posts: 8

PostPosted: Sun Oct 27, 2024 19:53    Post subject: Reply with quote
minchinghowrt wrote:
I just tried the 10/15 build today. Still no dice. I'm pretty sure STP is turned off by default. I did notice ohmic314 mentioned LN1301. I assume this should be the same hardware as LN1300, but shipped with different firmware. I also tried different Shortcut Forwarding Engine settings. Nothing really helps.

I hope if screenshot of setting can be provided. I really want to use DD-wrt after I tried OpenWRT. :p

That's weird it didn't work. The only thing I can suggest is to flash with the firmware I'm using (r58381), do a factory reset, and start from replicating my steps exactly. Then when it's working, try to add on more features until something breaks. The reason I am explicitly saying to do a factory reset is because the steps to install dd-wrt says not to do a factory reset when going from the old firmware to the latest one. There's a chance some configuration in the original stock->dd-wrt flash may be breaking something. I know there was some discussion on maybe in the process of flipping settings that maybe it changed something unexpectedly, but I was only playing with two LN1301s until I got the mesh working, then I added the third with the steps I provided. So at least from the nodes, flipping the other settings shouldn't have some side effect from changing things around.

Another thing that helped me during setup was using an ethernet cable between the main and node, then another cable from the main to my computer. That way I could quickly see if the two settings are exactly the same and that DHCP is working. After all looks right, I disconnect the node and ensure I can still talk to it.

Here are screenshots of my setup. There's a couple of things different from what I posted. I found they don't make any difference and I only changed them for my setup. (Screenshots show IP is 4.1, and wifi mode to AX only). I expanded out the wifi advanced settings just as an FYI, but I don't recall changing anything in there. And sorry for the weirdness in the screenshot sizes. I didn't realize paint was cropping some of them until I was doing the editing. The important data is still there or can be figured out by comparing the two main/node screenshots.

Things to note from the screenshots are that the status page is very useful in showing that it established the link between the two nodes in wlan2. It also shows where my laptop connected to wlan1 on only the node, but I got an IP and can navigate to both LN1301s through the link.

@lexridge - I'm actually surprised that STP is working so well on your setup. I have no idea why it was giving me headaches on mine. Either way, I'm glad yours is working as intended! The only reason I didn't want to use WAP was because with Virtual AP not working, I can't daisy chain nodes to get more range. I'm limited to how close I can get to the main router.
lexridge
DD-WRT Guru


Joined: 07 Jun 2006
Posts: 1827
Location: WV, USA

PostPosted: Sun Oct 27, 2024 22:00    Post subject: Reply with quote
ohmic314 wrote:
@lexridge - I'm actually surprised that STP is working so well on your setup. I have no idea why it was giving me headaches on mine. Either way, I'm glad yours is working as intended! The only reason I didn't want to use WAP was because with Virtual AP not working, I can't daisy chain nodes to get more range. I'm limited to how close I can get to the main router.


Thanks for the screenshots. You setup looks pretty much like my setup I did this morning before turning STP on. Of course there is no real reason to use STP as it's built into 802.11s. I only wanted to see if it would completely break dhcp, which oddly enough it didn't.

My production setup is quite different than this as there is no dhcp server running on any of my LN1301s and I have several vlans going over it as well.

Thanks again for all your input. Every bit of information we can aquire is helpful in the long run.

_________________
- Linksys EA8500: I-Gateway, WAP/VAP 5ghz only. Features: WDS-AP, VLANs, Samba, WG, Entware - r59429
- Linksys EA8500: 802.11s Secondary w/VLAN Trunk over 5ghz - r59171
- Linksys MX4300: 802.11s Primary w/VLAN Trunk over 5ghz. 2.4ghz WAP/VAP only - r59171
- Linksys MX4300 (WAP/VAP (7)) Multiple VLANs over single trunk port. Entware/Samba r59451
- Linksys MR7350: WDS Station for extended Ethernet r59451
- Linksys Velop WHW03v1 x2: OpenWRT w/GRETAP tunnel for VLANs on VAPs
- OSes: Fedora 40, 10 RPis (2,3,4,5), 23 ESP8266s: Straight from Amiga to Linux in '95, never having owned a Windows PC.

- Forum member #248
minchinghowrt
DD-WRT Novice


Joined: 17 Sep 2024
Posts: 25

PostPosted: Mon Oct 28, 2024 5:21    Post subject: Reply with quote
lexridge wrote:

The only difference I can find here perhaps is that I am running an alpha release. So MAYBE the issue was fixed between r58568 and what I am running, r58606M.

Searching through SVN, I did find one small change to Mesh: https://svn.dd-wrt.com/changeset/58582 which appears to turns off ath11k transmit checksumming.


THIS IS IT!!!!
I manually run the command `ethtool -K wlan2 tx-checksumming off` on both MX4300 and the DHCP works.
I'm running `DD-WRT v3.0-r58568 std (10/15/24)` on both devices.
This next release looks very promising to me.

However, this command also raises a little bit of concern. Why do we need to disable TX checksum? Most likely the check sum is failing and by doing so we bypass the check. I tried to run some speed test and didn't see any significant performance changes.
jrscs
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Joined: 09 Aug 2010
Posts: 492

PostPosted: Mon Oct 28, 2024 13:58    Post subject: Reply with quote
minchinghowrt wrote:
lexridge wrote:

The only difference I can find here perhaps is that I am running an alpha release. So MAYBE the issue was fixed between r58568 and what I am running, r58606M.

Searching through SVN, I did find one small change to Mesh: https://svn.dd-wrt.com/changeset/58582 which appears to turns off ath11k transmit checksumming.


THIS IS IT!!!!
I manually run the command `ethtool -K wlan2 tx-checksumming off` on both MX4300 and the DHCP works.
I'm running `DD-WRT v3.0-r58568 std (10/15/24)` on both devices.
This next release looks very promising to me.

However, this command also raises a little bit of concern. Why do we need to disable TX checksum? Most likely the check sum is failing and by doing so we bypass the check. I tried to run some speed test and didn't see any significant performance changes.


I can confirm the command `ethtool -K wlan0 tx-checksumming off`allows the Node (MX4300) to get an IP address through the Primary (MX4300) DHCP server.

_________________
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